Merle Hagards " Leonard"

Todd Meadows · From: Morral, Ohio, USA

Does anyone Know who this song's about? Todd

Bob Knight · From: Bowling Green KY

Tommy Collins.

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Bob is correct.
And another little known fact: Buck Owens played lead guitar for Tommy Collins.

Curtis Alford · From: BastropTexas, USA 78602

Did Buck not also play steel for Tommy Collins?

Bob Blair · From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

The signature guitar part in "Leonard" is copied from a line Buck played on a Tommy Collins singled called "Better not Do That" (I could stand corrected on the precise name of the tune). So when Hag used it in his song, it was kind of a musical clue to Leonard's identity.

Scott Wehmeyer · From: Texas, USA

I believe Tommy Collins' real name was Leonard Sipe.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

A story on how Tommy Collins got his name. He was out on the road with Ferlin Husky and others and Tommy being very young at the time was sent out to get the rest some drinks. Tommy didn't know much about "licker" at the time and came back with a bunch of Tom Collins drinks. As the story goes (from a singer friend that worked the road with Tommy) Ferlin told "Leonard" that he needed a good stage name and with the Tom Collins drinks he brought back Ferlin told him his name is now "Tommy Collins".

Russ Wever · From: Kansas City

-->Here is a recitation by Tommy Collins in which he speaks of Russell Bailey getting a new double-neck, four-pickup, nine-pedal,two knee-lever rig, which, appearently, is "a Dilly".

~Russ

Smiley Roberts · From: Hendersonville,Tn. 37075

Now,THAT'S FUNNY,I don't care who y'are!!

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  ~ ~


  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   


  mm   if it ain't got that twang.

Todd Meadows · From: Morral, Ohio, USA

Thanks guys, Being kind of a youngster I still don't know much ,but I've always wondered who that song was about. Todd

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Russ:

Thanks for posting the link to "Cigarette Milner"--been a long time since I heard it.

Any chance you can post "Opal,You Ask Me"--another Collins recitation detailing his difficulties with a wife--or was it just a girlfriend? I think it is on the same LP.

Russ Wever · From: Kansas City

Mitch,

It wasn't as much indecent as it was sickenin'!

click -->

Opal, . . . you asked.

Keep your ole chin up,
~Russ

[This message was edited by Russ Wever on 31 May 2006 at 10:37 PM.]

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Russ:

Thanks so much for the "Opal" bit. I well remember seeing Tommy do it live one night at a songwriter's shindig in Nashville in the early 1980s--complete with some off-color additions that never made it to the vinyl version. He was a character!

Russ Wever · From: Kansas City

Mitch,

I would have liked to seen that.

Do you recall how he staged it?

I picture him perhaps sitting at a small table with a 'prop' telephone, bottle of beer, dimly lit.

~Russ

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Russ:

The gig was during what used to be called the DJ convention in Nashville--the big annual event held in October that I think coincides with the CMA awards show.

As I recall, the performance was held in one of a group of tents set up for the occasion. It was a special "songwriter's" show. Bruce Channel was on the same bill.

I certainly remember Tommy mimicing a telephone held to his ear as he carried on with Opal, walking out into the audience.

And he wore a red satin "warmup" jacket like you used to see basketball players wear--with the name "Leonard" emblazoned on the back.

Very cool--maybe the most memorable thing I saw all that week. My memory isn't what it used to be--I wish I could remember the hysterical story Roy Wiggins told us about Slim Idaho while we were backstage at the Opry during the same trip.

Thanks again for the tune!

Larry King · From: Watts, Oklahoma, USA

Has anyone heard "Tilt Me A Little Toward Tillie" ?? great song

ESnow · From: Berryville AR USA

Has anyone heard Tommy's The Preacher Man doing his Easter Sunday Sermon? It's too funny. warning tho, the language is adult only, lots of 4 letter words but if you take it for what it is it's very very funny. ESnow

Skip Edwards · From: LA,CA

I have a copy of his preacher tape... it's quite irreverent...and quite funny. He really lets the congregation have it... not smoothing anybody's fur...
"hoss... & hoss's"....

Per Kammersgaard · From: Sonderborg, Denmark

Has anybody but me, heard Craig Morgan's Tommy Collins tribute "I Wish I Was in Bakersfield" with Haggard taking the part as Collins. Really strong stuff....

PK

Kenny Burford · From: Independence, Missouri USA

My old boss Jim Frazier, who was an electrical engineer for GTE swore up and down that he attended college with Leonard Sipe (aka Tommy Collins) at Oklahoma University. Sometime later on I read that Collins initially moved to California to work in the petroleum industry as a chemical engineer after graduating college. Can anyone on the TSF confirm whether Sipe/Collin’s was indeed a chemical engineer?